Aviation Stories for April 22, 2011

Is this true only in California?
This article is from Hollister, CA. After the FBO operator on their airport renewed the lease to operate their business someone took the time to do a little research and found out that the FBO owner didn’t have a required license. Apparently a California state law requires that the FBO owner hold a Real Estate Broker’s license in order to rent hangar space. I wonder how many FBO’s are in compliance with the law?

Private aviation in being hit hard in Europe, too.
This is an article from Flight Global. It is not new news that private aviation has been declining in popularity for several years. This article describes the decline in Europe and specifically the UK. Some interesting numbers in the article.

Here’s a new book that describes the life of a commuter airline pilot.
This is a press release for the release of an autobiography of a commuter airline pilot. It has a recommendation from Jeff Skiles, so either the book is an accurate description of commuter pilot life, or Skiles found another source of income. It’s probably a little of both. I have not yet read the book, however I have placed an affiliate link to the book at Amazon in the right sidebar.

Pilots recreate 1928 Pacific crossing flight.
This article is from the Sidney Morning Herald. Two pilots(Jeremy Rowsell and Jim Hazelton) have recreated the first U.S.-Australia flight. In 1928 Charles Kingsford-Smith and Charles Ulm and two other crew members flew their Fokker F.VII, Southern Cross, from Oakland, CA to Brisbane, Australia. The modern version of the flight was accomplished in a Beechcraft A-36 with all the latest technology to help them along. I have to give these two credit for their effort to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS)- founded the same year as the original flight. However, my feeling is that if you are going to ‘recreate’ a historical flight it ought to be done in something close to the original aircraft.

Jimmy Doolittle’s career
This is the transcript and audio file of a Voice of America radio program. The program, Explorations, calls it a Special English program – designed for people who are learning the English language. the show gives a good overview of Doolittle’s career.

You really need to know who Zeke Saunders is.
This is an article from the Winston-Salem Journal. H.K. ‘Zeke’ Saunders, 90 years old, is a WWII veteran, one of the founding pilots of Piedmont Airlines and an accomplished Bluegrass singer. Someone needs to get his story on video. This article is just part of it.

The Only Flying FW-190 A-5 in the World.
This is an article from the SeattlePI.com blog. Everett, Washington’s Flying Heritage Collection now has the only flying FW-190 in the world. Someone found it outside of Leningrad, Russia where it had crashed in 1943. Several videos of the restoration and first flights are included at the end of the article.

A Question for my Readers

I read an article recently about the author’s pet peeves about websites. One of things this person felt was most irritating was web sites that forced the reader’s browser to open links in new tabs – breaking the ability of the reader to use the back button to return to the original article and adding a bit of confusion if the reader didn’t notice a new tab had been opened.

I had always thought that opening new tabs was a plus, so I set up my links that way. What are your thoughts – would you prefer to stay on the same tab and just use the back button to return or do you prefer the way that I have been doing my links?